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Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

I have a Basic subscription to PredictWind..it seems to correlate pretty well with the actual winds around the shack and up the Straits. No other wind forecasters I've tried (around 10-15 of them) have come close. And that's even with a wind buoy not too far away from here. But PredictWind seems to get the local effects including land masses, influence of afternoon sea breezes, etc pretty right. I don't have any shares in the company

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Rick, I'm talking down to 1 square kilometre wind predictions with PredictWind. It means they have quite good local modelling. We used BOM amongst others on the way down the coast from the Reef, but I would have loved to have had PredictWind then too.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

One of my close friends was crew on one of the race boats return trip Fiji to Auckland a month or three ago. They had a predictwind route plan which told them course and wind speed overlayed on the boats polars so with target boatspeed as well. Great tool for cruising and racing but certainly race wise its the sort of thing that eclipses experience and wisdom, you just buy all that with an app. Its like phrf racing now , you have to try and compete with boats with motors running , powered winches, water ballast and or canting keels . And the boats with the best outside information on top of all that , wins. A win for science over art, intuition , knowledge and experience.

But hey , I just came across a copy of Lewis's ' We the Navigators' which I've never read and I'm enjoying so far.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Originally Posted by John B

One of my close friends was crew on one of the race boats return trip Fiji to Auckland a month or three ago. They had a predictwind route plan which told them course and wind speed overlayed on the boats polars so with target boatspeed as well. Great tool for cruising and racing but certainly race wise its the sort of thing that eclipses experience and wisdom, you just buy all that with an app. Its like phrf racing now , you have to try and compete with boats with motors running , powered winches, water ballast and or canting keels . And the boats with the best outside information on top of all that , wins. A win for science over art, intuition , knowledge and experience.

But hey , I just came across a copy of Lewis's ' We the Navigators' which I've never read and I'm enjoying so far.

No doubt in a two decades the Navigators will look as weathered as the pages of Lewis's book. PredictWind !! rather sounds like it's taking some of the challenges out of racing and cruising. Gawd what ever happened to the days of just sticking your nose out of the harbour and then battening down the hatches if required. OK I'll be looking at both those when I head across the Tasman. thanks guys.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

John, I agree with you about the effects on racing, but even for me here in the Straits, a good wind forecast is a blessing when planning a cruise. Having said that, wind forecasts definitely ain't death 'n taxes, so I'd be a fool to rely too much on what any predictive model says.

I sailed with a Kiribati traditional navigator about 500miles down through the islands, and was taught to sail outriggers by another. Doing my couple of years' fieldwork up on Onotoa in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) I discovered that the view of the underside of the thatched roof, all rafters, and battens and cross battens, is used by them as a plot of the heavens, stars and various courses to other island groups. Fascinating stuff..enjoy your read!

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

What an amazing experience that would have been.
Yeah I'm not averse at all to technology but I don't like the way it creates dependence. I'm pretty well mathlexic so I love gps, but I could get somewhere dead reckoning and do enough not to be too lost.
I agree , modern forecasting is becoming terrific but all I look for from it is an appropriate window to go somewhere without it being a hurricane, rather than a step by step paint by numbers steer 200 until 1300 , alter course to 180 etc etc.
Which is the sort of thing those guys had. It can lead to the dreaded paralysis by analysis too.
I'll take it all to a point, gimme a picture of some isobars and I'm fairly happy.

Originally Posted by johnno

John, I agree with you about the effects on racing, but even for me here in the Straits, a good wind forecast is a blessing when planning a cruise. Having said that, wind forecasts definitely ain't death 'n taxes, so I'd be a fool to rely too much on what any predictive model says.

I sailed with a Kiribati traditional navigator about 500miles down through the islands, and was taught to sail outriggers by another. Doing my couple of years' fieldwork up on Onotoa in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) I discovered that the view of the underside of the thatched roof, all rafters, and battens and cross battens, is used by them as a plot of the heavens, stars and various courses to other island groups. Fascinating stuff..enjoy your read!

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Originally Posted by johnno

I discovered that the view of the underside of the thatched roof, all rafters, and battens and cross battens, is used by them as a plot of the heavens, stars and various courses to other island groups. !

Wonderful!!

Larks

“It’s impossible”, said pride.
“It’s risky”, said experience.
“It’s pointless”, said reason.
“Give it a try”, whispered the heart.

LPBC Beneficiary

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great!"

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Originally Posted by John B

What an amazing experience that would have been.
Yeah I'm not averse at all to technology but I don't like the way it creates dependence. I'm pretty well mathlexic so I love gps, but I could get somewhere dead reckoning and do enough not to be too lost.
I agree , modern forecasting is becoming terrific but all I look for from it is an appropriate window to go somewhere without it being a hurricane, rather than a step by step paint by numbers steer 200 until 1300 , alter course to 180 etc etc.
Which is the sort of thing those guys had. It can lead to the dreaded paralysis by analysis too.
I'll take it all to a point, gimme a picture of some isobars and I'm fairly happy.

That sounds like a good approach, otherwise I can see a certain paralysis setting in and god forbid the electronics go down .

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

We're talking two separate things here Pete. All that I'm talking about is that PredictWind seems to give a much more accurate weather forecast than BOM and a number of other forecasters, eg NOAA. All sailors with any electronics or phones or emails are always trying to get a good forecast. Unless you're on an outrigger.

But then what JohnB is talking about is any number of proprietary routers which then model desirable routes using that wind data, to either avoid high winds, waves, adverse currents if you're a cruiser, or seek out strong favourable winds, waves, and currents if you're a racer. As he says, the complex algorithms built into the routers are a mathematical alternative to using local knowledge and experience. And because these can be dropped into a gps, then suddenly all the waypoints are automatic!! There-in lies the danger.

But any sailor I think, at least a smart one, wants to get the best weather info he can before setting sail, or planning the next six hours of sailing.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

The skipper was quoted as being aware that he was leaving at a time when the prevailing pattern was a series of depressions moving across the Tasman. He obviously didn't see this as a risk to his crew. Disregard is probably the wrong term to use - I probably should have said discounted.
Rick

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Boat that size, well found, should cope with pretty much anything bar a full blown hurricane. Something must have broke-like sprung plank I'd guess. Not saying its not a good idea to plan for a comfortable trip, but there's not neccesarily anything foolhardy about setting out into bad weather.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

I didn't say he was foolhardy! I'm saying he had a record and forecast of a pattern of storms along the proposed route but chose to proceed anyway. Some would have made the same decision I suspect while others would have waited or chosen a different route. He was in the group that put less weight on the weather forecast than others would have, presumably. I can guess but I don't know what his reasoning was, so I wonder what he was thinking. I'm in no position to make any judgement about his decision! He clearly didn't expect whatever happened, to happen.

My only other question about this event is why the boat wasn't carrying multiple EPIRBs. There must have been a reason - I wonder what it was?

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

While we're on the topic of weather forecasts ......
I'm a big fan of the BOM, probably because for most of my life I've looked at their maps etc. in trying to work out where to go surfing, and, later, sailboarding, and I'm pretty comfortable with their data as my primary source. Now, I might be wrong (heaven forbid!) but these days the BOM usually overestimates wind strength and swell. I think this conservative approach is due to the political flak they copped when Sydney was flattened by a storm about 20 years ago. I'm critical of their practice of overestimation as I think it leads to complacency - I find myself ignoring storm and strong wind warnings more than I should. I think they should predict a range and provide an estimate that they really think is most likely to eventuate. All this is my impression only, I should add!

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Make a login, select a new map area, traverse around your starting map view with the on-screen navigaotor or keyboard arrows, click on any visual artefacts. I've just dropped into an area where it looks like a lot of debris. Highly unlikely from Nina, much more likely some kind soul dumping trash from a passing ship.

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Originally Posted by brucemoffatt

Make a login, select a new map area, traverse around your starting map view with the on-screen navigaotor or keyboard arrows, click on any visual artefacts. I've just dropped into an area where it looks like a lot of debris. Highly unlikely from Nina, much more likely some kind soul dumping trash from a passing ship.

Interesting, I've probably picked up the same rubbish field. I've tagged a few things as "?" and got about 22 "agrees", but also one that I tagged as a raft and got 3 agrees on it....????

Larks

“It’s impossible”, said pride.
“It’s risky”, said experience.
“It’s pointless”, said reason.
“Give it a try”, whispered the heart.

LPBC Beneficiary

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great!"

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Originally Posted by brucemoffatt

Is anyone else doing map-tagging on tomnod in the search for Nina?

Wow what a day up at 4am of to work and just walked back in the house just after 6 pm. These split shifts are killing me, I may only be on the payroll for 34 hours ,unfortunately then comes the Love Jobs helping my gorgeous wife restructure her fashion business, phone calls, jump on the ride on and get the yard up to scratch, work on one of my projects, splice some lines for WB cash my first Canadian Pension Cheque . Darn time to head back to work. Sorry if I am not quite as sharp as I should be but what exactly do you mean with that statement Bruce .

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Gary love to catch up with you if I make it Sat, and yes I went for a swim in the harbour, my favourite activity especially at about 8AM , yes to the impact driver, and too bad I didn't have the spear gun with me since there is a rather large school of Trevally living down there .

Re: Antipodean Boats Connection

Tom, Tomnod is a little online program that allows us all to log in to your brainwaves and make you nod off whenever we fancy. Feeling a bit tired mate? That's just us.....

Actually it's a place where you can stare at a blue screen for hours on end and try and make something of the little dots that appear..........or to be more precise it's an online land and sea search capability using satellite imagery (though I don't know how recent the imagery is) which uses the resources of anyone who can find a few minutes to go online and volunteer to study the imagery to search vast areas, which at the moment is of an area of ocean where Nina or her liferaft may be. The scale is about 20metres to 1cm (depending on your screen) so it's reasonably capable of picking up a liferaft.

It presents you with a random area so the idea is that by getting as many people as possible to search, a large area can be covered multiple times. You mark anything that might appear worth looking at closer and if it gets multiple hits I assume someone does take a closer look at it.

Go to tomnod.com

Larks

“It’s impossible”, said pride.
“It’s risky”, said experience.
“It’s pointless”, said reason.
“Give it a try”, whispered the heart.

LPBC Beneficiary

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great!"